A Piece of Junk from You
by Kazahana Fujikaze
Summary: Renji gets a useless present from Rukia. And then what happens afterward.
1. Chapter 1

**A Piece of Junk from You**

* * *

"Hey, Rukia?" "Yeah?"

"Why did you give me this?"

Renji held out a keychain.

"It's a present. A good-luck charm, if you will. It's a keychain!"

He examined it.

"It's not made of keys and it's not really a chain, you know."

Rukia wagged a finger at him. "You really need to brush up your knowledge of the human world."

He scowled.

"So, what is it for?"

"Humans created these so to attach their keys in a ring so that they were in a collected and easily accessible manner. The keys tend to pile up and more links are added to the ring, so you have a chain."

Renji remembered what humans used as keys - for now, anyways. There were small pieces of metal with teeth like protrusions, some times even, but usually uneven, along a shaft. Older, even ancient, keys tended to be bigger and simpler (though some, he recalled correctly, were ornamental). The teeth aligned with tumblers in a lock to allow the tumblers to turn within a lock to open it. At least, common locks. He was certain humans had advanced enough to probably use much more advanced electronic technology for securing much more valuable items.

In any case, he looked at at the keychain dubiously. "I see… that explains the ring on it. But what's with the..."

"Well, they have more of an ornamental purpose now, too," Rukia interuppted, "Some attach them to backpacks and cell phones. Oh… and pencil cases."

"None of which I have."

He just held it front of his face and let it swing back and forth. Rukia stared at it was well. She smiled wickedly.

"You could get a backpack from Urahara's shop…"

"I don't need a backpack."

"Okay... what about a cellphone? You're going to need one for…"

"I'll worry about that later."

Well, Renji didn't need a pencil case either, so Rukia didn't bother asking him that. She frowned for a moment, as though thinking hard.

She looked at him suspiciously. "So?"

"So nothing!" Renji scowled.

He should have known that only Rukia would give him something this bizarre. Well, bizarre was relative, but that wasn't the issue here.

"What?" pouted Rukia, "You don't like it?"

"I don't have any keys."

He stared at it again.

"So? Answer the question!"

"It's… very you."

"So, you don't like it!"

"I didn't say that!"

"Oh… if that's like saying I've never made fun of your eyebrows!"

"So what?" Renji scoffed, "It's not like I'll use this for anything."

"You could attach it to Zabimaru."

Renji gave her this look that said "Hell, no!"

"How about the sheath, then?"

His expression didn't change. She pretended to sniff.

"So, you're just going to get rid of it? After all the trouble I went to get it for you?" she said, "A present from me?"

Renji sighed and stuffed in a pocket of his hakama. Even if it was piece of junk to him, it was still a piece of junk from Rukia. He would just have to find a place to hide it.

"No, of course not."

Secretly, Rukia had been planning to give him another pair of outlandish looking shades, but knowing Renji, they would probably break in another fight. She hugged him and watched a blush creep onto his face with a rather devious look in her eyes.

"How can you not like Chappy the Bunny?"

She smirked. Maybe she would give him those shades. Of course, after she found out what the keychain's fate would be.

Renji sighed again. What would he do with a Chappy keychain?

"How can I not?"

* * *

Author: Are you one those people who have more keychains than actual keys for them?


	2. Chapter 2

**Lost and Found?**

* * *

On a sunny day, Rukia pulled down her shades and let them sling around her neck.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Abarai!"

She hopped onto the couch in his office. Renji grumbled and pushed aside a stack of paper, creating a crack about 5 centimetres wide.

"Whaaat?"

Rukia smirked. He scowled.

"Oh nothing..." she smiled sweetly, "Isn't it a nice day?"

"Whatever..."

"Isn't it a shame that you can't enjoy it like everyone else?"

Glancing out the window, he secretly wished there was at least one cloud in the sky to ruin the perfect day.

"Is that why you have a pair of sunglasses?" Renji mumbled, "So you can make fun of me by reminding how you can enjoy the glaring bright sun while I can't?"

"Maybe..."

Renji cursed under his breath and tried to return to his paperwork. Thanks to Aizen, Ichimaru, and Tosen, every other division got twice the paperwork. And that ice cold man who Rukia called "Honourable Older Brother" left him with an undefinitive amount to do.

"Why are you still here?"

He didn't like that glint in her eye. The paperwork suddenly looked very interesting.

"So, I was wondering... where's Chappy?"

"Whaat?"

"Where's Chappy?"

Renji stared through the 5 cm crack between the paper stacks.

"Oh... that stupid keychain? I dunno..."

Rukia gasped and suddenly Renji was looking at her face to face, with Rukia having shoved aside stacks of paper to turn the 5 cm crack turning into a 50 cm one.

"You lost Chappy? And you called him stupid?"

Renji couldn't tell if she was serious or was only joking.

"If it was Yuki or Papyrus, I could understand," Rukia lamented, "But Chappy? Oh, what has thou done to him?"

"Why do thou care?" shouted Renji.

She took a deep breath, "Because... this is CHAPPY we are talking about!"

"You're getting excited over a keychain! What is that all about?"

After they were finishing glaring at each other, Rukia slumped onto the couch. Renji took another shot at the paperwork.

"Mmph..."

"Are you laughing?" Renji asked irritably.

"No... mmph..."

No, she was muffling it. Badly, he thought.

"What's so funny?"

"Since when do you say 'thou'?"

"Since I had the honour of having a Kuchiki in my office," Renji said sarcastically,

"You know, you've actually used it incorrectly, because 'thou' is a familiar term of address, so you're being very disrespectful."

"You started it - you used it first. And I'm a lieutenant. I rank higher than you."

"Ah, but I'm a Kuchiki. I have more social status as a member of one of the highest ranking noble families."

He scowled. "Are you bipolar or something?"

"No! Why would you say that?"

"You were all weepy over that stupid keychain five seconds ago and now you're laughing."

The very mention of the lost keychain had Rukia slumped back onto the couch, seemingly miserable. The black lines on the paper blurred as Renji's mind was distracted with other thoughts. He could understand why people used to make keys look more ornamental, but apparently, humans prefered making keychains to achieve that effect now.

He sighed and quietly opened a drawer.

"Ack!"

He stared hard the paper. Rukia rubbed the back of her head, the supposedly lost keychain clutched in her small hand. Wow... the keychain was harder than she thought. These things were durable.

"What was that for?" Rukia snapped.

Renji ignored her.

"Why did you throw Chappy at me?" Rukia demanded. "That's abuse you know!"

She hopped over the couch and slumped over his desk, swinging the keychain back and forth in front of him. Annoyed, he snatched it from her hands.

"It's my keychain, I'll do what I want with it!"

"Really? Your keychain?"

"Yes! And I'll throw at people if I want!"

He turned to dump it back into the desk drawer and turned back to Rukia, whose eyes were wide.

"I didn't think you'd actually keep it," she said somewhat incredulously, "Well... Here something from Captain Ukitake!"

A big grin appeared on her face as she ceremoniously dumped a pile of paper onto the tall stacks already present on his desk.

"Whaat?"

Renji was almost livid with disbelief. He turned to find Rukia was on his windowsill.

"Is that all you can say today?" she smiled.

"Do you enjoy watching me suffer?" he shouted.

"Maybe just a little, Lieutenant," Rukia smirked, "Bye, Renji!"

She tossed him the shades she had been wearing around her neck and leapt from the window. Renji clutched the shades as looked out of the window and saw a only dazed Rikichi. The 6th Division member never knew what hit him. Renji sighed and sat back at his desk.

Taking the first sheet of the new pile, he found a crudely drawn picture. In contrast was Rukia's neat handwriting.

_"Thrown away that keychain, already? I thought so... _(insert bad drawing of a face sticking out tongue) _Well, here's your real present! You better not break these ones, too!"  
_

Unlike Ichigo, Renji knew better than to criticize Rukia's incredibly bad drawings. He opened the desk drawer again and dropped a scribble of Chappy wearing sunglasses inside along with that ridiculous keychain. Suppressing a smile, he stared out the window at the sunny sky.

* * *

Author: Can you believe Renji's funny looking sunglasses cost half a year's paycheck? (I got that from a character book, I don't remember which one.) Thanks for all the kind reviews.


	3. Chapter 3

**Payback**

* * *

Rukia knew Renji wouldn't trick her... at least in a malicious way. But after the keychain incident, she wondered what he could be planning. If she recalled anything from their childhood, Renji could be just as cunning as she was. Not more, Rukia thought, but just as. Well, maybe not cunning... or clever... but something similar. No, actually... nevermind. She was out of adjectives. Okay, she knew he wasn't an idiot.

So when so got a note from him, she was immediately suspicious. She studied his messy (though legible) handwriting for the fifth time, as though contained a secret message.

_"Before you make fun of my handwriting, I'd like to note that you still can't draw anything... _(Rukia made a mental note to kick him for that) _Anyways, I got something for you..."_

Rukia made a strange face as she studied the odd doodles he had made on the page. She reluctantly admitted to herself that most people would say his drawings looked better than hers... but they had no sense of aesthetics! After all, she was the adopted sister of Kuchiki Byakuya, whose artistic ability truly exemplified refined beauty and elegance.

"Ack!"

She suddenly turned around looking for the one who nailed the back of her head with a very cold object the size of a small snowball. She found one smirking red-haired shinigami, preparing to throw what looked like another snowball.

"Aaahh!"

Rukia jumped, hoping to dodge the snowball. Her attempt failed as she slipped on the icy ground and regained her balance... and getting hit by said snowball in the process.

"Owww... Renji!"

"Huh, I thought with your zanpakutou and all, snow wouldn't be a big deal," Renji remarked.

"Nobody likes getting hit by snowballs when it isn't a snowball fight!" shrieked Rukia, "And it hasn't snowed yet!"

"Says you, who threw snowballs at me all the time! Also, if I remember correctly, you said that when you first released Sode no Shirayuki, a block of ice fell on your head and knocked you out cold."

"For your information, I wasn't out cold! It was merely shocked to the point where I couldn't move. Or see. Or hear... but that's not the issue here! What is important is..." Rukia took a deep breath, "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT SNOWBALL? "

Renji flinched. "Have you ever seen Hitsugaya get angry before? Really angry?"

"Oh... that's not good..."

Sode no Shirayuki was nothing compared to the damage Hitsugaya's Hyorinmaru could do. She was somewhat glad that she was on his good side... except with that one time she insisted that they should make snow bunnies. She shivered at the memory... and the fact she suddenly realized it was actually colder than usual outside.

"Blame it on Matsumoto. Her stupidity is the reason why there's snow in the first place. Everyone else is having a snowball fight near the 10th Division headquarters."

Suddenly her eyes were all sparkly. That can't be good, Renji thought.

"Let's go and build... snow bunnies!"

"I don't have time to build snow bunnies!"

"Then why did you waste all this time throwing snowballs at me?"

He gave her an irritated look and then... threw another snowball at her.

"Ack!"

Distracted with getting snow off her head, Rukia did not notice when she ducked down that he was tossing something else at her head. Something flatter. It landed with a thud beneath her just as she looked up. Ignoring the object, Rukia concerned herself with how he had managed to hide a snowball that long without her noticing.

"What was that for?" she demanded.

"Your birthday," he said, turning his back and walking off towards the 6th Division headquarters, "and payback for all that stupid Chappy stuff."

"I'll get you for this, you weird-tattoo-eyebrow Chappy-hater!"

"That's nice, short midget who can't draw to save her life," he shouted, getting further away with each step.

She couldn't see, but he was twirling the Chappy keychain around his finger with amused satisfaction that he had finally got back at her.

Meanwhile, Rukia angrily brushed the rest of the snow off her head, grumbling as she did, until she noticed something in a plastic package. She picked up the newest volume of her favourite horror manga and decided that she could forgive him this time.

* * *

Author: Rukia and Byakuya are both so equally bad at art... only Rukia would think Byakuya's sand sculpture (from the bonus chapter, the famous "Seaweed Ambassador") doesn't suck.


End file.
